Solange’s Losing You: Hypnotically Banal

RIDING COATTAILS

Solange’s Losing You: Hypnotically Banal

SHHHH! Let me whisper something in your ear that you can pass along at the risk of being “uncool”: Solange’s new songLosing You is a soothingly banal and derivative piece of pop.

On the other hand, I could luxuriate in the music video’s cool washed out visuals all day.

The hipster sister who walks in Beyoncé’s shadow released a new song Oct. 2 after a four-year hiatus from recording. The Los Angeles Times gets it right by calling it a “snappy, relaxed groove that sounds as if it had been unearthed from a dusty ’80s jukebox.” And Spincalls it a “remarkable song in its own right, with a breezy fusion of singer-centric R&B, 1980s pop (cf. the Cars’ “Drive”), and lanky, mid-tempo hip-house beats.” (Thus, confirming my ‘derivative’ label nicely.)

Ostensibly, the song is about losing a lover’s interest.

Tell me the truth boy, am I losing you for goodWe use to kiss all night but now it’s just no useI don’t know why I fight it, clearly we are throughTell me the truth boy, am I losing you for good”

But the languid rhythms makes heartbreak as painful as a temporary detour along love’s blue highways. Which, come to think of it, is a good thing. This disappearing lover will be gone and forgotten in no time and no one will be worse off for it.

That’s not to say that Solange isn’t an intriguing vision in the video shot in Cape Town, South Africa. With her chic fashion style, hipster ‘fro, cheeky neck rolls and jerky dance steps, it’s hard to take your eyes off her. Maybe that’s more than we should expect from any dilettante.